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initiative, referendum, and recall term limits Voting

They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?

Citizen Initiatives, term limits, North Dakota

North Dakota state representatives (and I use that term loosely) are unhappy. 

Very unhappy.

They have no use for the Ethics Commission that voters established back in 2018 by passing a constitutional amendment initiated by citizen petition. State legislators reacted by trying to — ahem — “fix” the horse the ethics measure “rode in on.” 

That is, wreck the state’s ballot initiative process, to prevent citizens from making such reforms happen … without any “help” from politicians.

Legislators placed a constitutional amendment on the ballot to require that any citizen-​initiated amendment be approved not merely by North Dakota voters, but then by both chambers of the state legislature. Their amendment, amid uproar, was finally amended so that if legislators voted the initiative down, voters would get a second vote on it. 

Still, 62 percent of voters said, “No, thanks!”

Then, in 2022, the state Chamber of Commerce and other special interests attempted to use the citizen petition process, which they always say is way too easy. Yet, these insiders failed to gather enough signatures to qualify their measure requiring a 60 percent supermajority to pass an initiative. 

Meanwhile, term limits supporters gathered enough signatures* and, last November, North Dakotans said, “Yes!” 

Seems politicians in Bismarck, the state capital, are even less fond of term limits. They’ve introduced a raft of bills designed to kill the citizen petition process:

  • House Bill 1452 would slap a 90 percent tax on contributions to ballot measures by any American living outside North Dakota. 
  • House Bill 1230 would fine a campaign committee $10,000 and each of committee member $1,000 each if the petitions they turn in fail to have enough valid signatures to qualify the initiative.
  • Senate Concurrent Resolution 4013 would amend the state constitution to (a) require 25 percent more voter signatures, (b) outlaw any payment to signature gatherers (something the U.S. Supreme Court has already unanimously ruled state governments cannot do), © block new residents from petitioning in the state for in some cases over a year, and (d) mandate a 67 percent vote to pass a citizen-​initiated ballot measure. 

North Dakota legislators prove the case for term limits. And the horse it rode in on: citizen initiative.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Though term limits supporters had to fight the 30-​year incumbent Secretary of State’s attempt to block the petition all the way to the state’s highest court, which ruled unanimously to place term limits before the voters.

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Good News … For Now

Florida, legislature, citizens initiative

For now.

One must always add that proviso — at least with respect to constitutional provisions like term limits and citizen initiative rights, which limit the power of lawmakers and expand that of citizens. For these, incumbents’ hostility never ends.

But for now? The news is good. 

The Florida House of Representatives website reports that HJR 1127 “Died on Second Reading Calendar” in mid-​March. The same fate is reported for the companion senate bill.

The measure would have amended the constitution to limit citizen-​initiated amendments “to matters relating to procedural subjects or to structure of government or of State Constitution.”

Citizen initiatives would have been prohibited from dealing with policy matters, including legislatively enacted (or citizen-​enacted) policy that voters seek to reverse.*

During the battle over the measure, Kara Gross of the ACLU observed that some lawmakers “continue to find new ways to make the already-​stringent citizen initiative process even more challenging.”

One legislator who challenged the Republican-​sponsored measure was Democratic Representative Andrew Learned.

“Is it really best that the legislature make decisions and not the citizens of Florida on the ballot?” he asked. “If the people of Florida at the ballot aren’t a check on the legislature, I don’t know what is.”

No matter how unpopular such a bill might be with mere constituents, many lawmakers would have had no problem imposing it. As a constitutional amendment, though, such a change must be approved by voters. 

And that proved a bridge too far.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 * Florida politicians cry crocodile tears over citizen initiatives amending the constitution instead of merely changing a statute. Those same legislators refuse to establish a path for citizens to petition statutory changes onto the ballot.

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Death Star Destroys Democracy

Mississippi, democracy, citizen initiative

“I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.”

That’s Obi-​Wan Kenobi’s line in the original Star Wars movie, sensing that the Empire’s Death Star had obliterated all the inhabitants of the Planet Alderaan. 

It popped into my mind on Friday, after learning of the ruling handed down by the Mississippi Supreme Court that not only strikes down a medical marijuana ballot initiative passed by voters last November but “judicially kills Mississippi’s citizen initiative process,” as Justice James Maxwell wrote in his fiery dissent.

The Magnolia State’s entire initiative process has been destroyed. 

When the direct citizen initiative process was enacted, in 1992, Mississippi sported five congressional representatives. The constitutional provision setting out how to qualify an initiative was worded to allow only “one-​fifth” of the required petition signatures to come from any of the state’s five congressional districts (CDs). After the 2000 census, however, the state lost a congressional seat. Now with only four, simple math does not allow a way to get the prescribed balance of signatures.

Talk about a catch-22!

State officials just kept using their old maps with five CDs for ballot initiatives in order to comply with the letter of the law. But the court says that does not suffice. 

Only a constitutional amendment can restore this citizen check on politicians, and after the court’s ruling, only the legislature can place that amendment on the ballot. 

“Legislative leaders have not said clearly why they have not updated the initiative process in the 20 years since Mississippi lost a congressional district,” the Jackson Clarion Ledger reported Friday.

That’s simple: They don’t want citizens to have a check on them. 

Can citizens strike back?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Note: Mississippi voters first passed an initiative and referendum process in 1914 and the state supreme court upheld the validity of the process against a legal challenge in 1916. But after a 1922 initiative ruffled establishment feathers, the state supreme court reversed its earlier ruling and struck down the process in total. It was not until 70 years later, that the legislature would act to restore some measure of citizen initiative.

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Wolves, Checks, Balances

wolves, democracy, initiatives

“Propositions are a pure democracy,” Allen Thomas declares, “and a threat to the rights of our republic.” 

Citizen-​initiated ballot measures, he contends, “bypass the system.” 

Thomas’s wrongheaded essay — completely outside any right-​minded head — “A Proposition To End Ballot Propositions,” appeared on the website of KLZ 560 AM talk show host Kim Monson.

Thomas, an author and commentator in Colorado, refers to the electorate as “the mob” and offers the old standby wolves-​and-​sheep-​voting analogy. “Our Republic works,” informs Mr. Thomas, “because we bypass a direct democracy and instead balance the power of legislation between the state legislature and the governorship. It is a system of checks and balances.”

Yet, he does not mention the most critical check on both citizen-​initiated and legislative lawmaking: judicial review. We have courts that protect our rights against encroachment in law. In fact, in the real world, it seems the courts are far more demanding in reviewing initiatives for constitutional violations than the bills legislatures pass. 

Mr. Thomas also ignores that so many reforms — term limits jump to mind — would be impossible if only politicians acted.

Worse still, is the defeatism. “Progressives … are much better at it,” he concedes, adding “We also cannot count on the Colorado populace to think more reasonably.”

So, Thomas wants to “abolish” citizen initiatives. 

More hopeful is George Mason University Professor Ilya Somin. “Referendums are a promising tool for libertarian progress,” argues Somin at Reason, “one with a proven record of success.” No need for despair. 

“Much can be done,” Somin adds, “to build on that record and extend it.”

He’s right: Don’t be discouraged; take the initiative!

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Pandemic Petitioning?

closed, electronic signature, voting, elections, petitions, citizen,

“Our political system, our way of life, our Constitution cannot be let go,” the Libertarian Party’s Nicholas Sarwark argued on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, “just because there is a terrible illness spreading through the country.”

His concern? Libertarians — and Greens and other parties or independent candidates — must still gather hundreds of thousands of voter signatures to put their candidates on state ballots this November. 

And so, too, must citizen-​initiated ballot measures.

But who wants to petition into a deadly pandemic? Supposing you carefully made a grocery run, would you stop to chat with petitioners and grab their pen to sign? 

“That would be a public health nightmare,” explained Sarwark, “to force petitioners to go out with clipboards and gather signatures.” 

Libertarians are asking governors “to suspend these requirements that would endanger the public.” 

Cogent points, but I’m not so sure governors have lawful power to order candidates or initiatives onto the ballot. 

Much less the inclination.

Legislatures could act … but why help competing candidates gain access to the ballot? 

And as for green-​lighting issues that haven’t gone through their sausage-maker? 

Puh-​leeze.

Back in 2010, the Utah Supreme Court ruled that electronic signatures were legally valid. Rather than facilitate that process, the state legislature quickly banned it. 

But it is the obvious solution: allow voters to sign petitions online for candidates or ballot initiatives.* 

“The law has long recognized electronic signatures as legally effective where hand-​signed signatures are required,” contends Barry Statford in a law review article. “As early as 1869, the New Hampshire Supreme Court acknowledged the validity of a contract accepted by telegraph.”

The courts should mandate state acceptance of electronic signatures. 

Let’s sue.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Voters in Boulder, Colorado, passed an initiative allowing electronic signatures in 2018. 

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The Rest of the News

Matt Pitsch, Arkansas, initiative, citizen, ballot,

Reid Wilson’s very welcome reporting in The Hill, recently, was headlined, “GOP legislators clamping down on voter initiatives.” 

This disrespect for the people and their basic, democratic check on legislative power is far too common, and something about which people need to know. 

For instance, ballot measures in Florida already must garner a supermajority of 60 percent to win, but politicians are now proposing that threshold be hiked still higher to 67 percent. Not to mention bills to burden petitioners with unconstitutional restrictions.

Though most of the attacks are coming from Republican-​dominated legislatures, the article also made clear that Democratic Party legislators in several liberal states — California, Oregon, Washington — are also trying to “take power away from voters.”

But the article lacked some very pertinent information, allowing politicians to make some terribly misleading charges against direct democracy. 

“In the last seven elections, we’ve actually changed our constitution 20 times,” complains Arkansas State Sen. Mat Pitsch, the sponsor of legislation making petitioning for citizen-​initiated ballot measures more onerous. “We’re averaging three changes every other year. Things that normally are voted on by elected representatives were making their way through constitutional ballot measures.”

Sen. Pitsch thinks legislators should make these decisions, instead of voters. How convenient. 

But the state’s motto is “The People Rule.”

Honest people can disagree about how often state constitutions should be amended, but 20 amendments in 14 years does not make Arkansas one of the more prolific states. Moreover, consider the genesis of those 20 amendments. Only three were citizen-​sponsored measures; the other 17, the vast majority, were placed on the ballot by … legislators! 

A fact the reader should have been told.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Meet the Mob

citizen's initiative, democracy, mob, North Dakota, initiative

North Dakota faces a serious problem: The Mob. 

“The point of being a republic is so that Mob doesn’t rule,” warned Chris Berg, host of Point of View on Fargo, North Dakota’s Valley News Live. “If you live in a true democracy that’s where Mob can rule.”

Berg called citizens petitioning issues onto the ballot for a vote “a mob-​rule system … that allows us to change the actual constitution of our state.”

Not sure which constitution one might work to amend except for the “actual” constitution. But I do see a clearly articulated concern with mob rule. 

“A republic, my folks, is what we live in,” continued Berg, juxtaposing the ballot initiative process as “a pure democratic system.”

But ballot measures are no more pure democracy than are acts enacted by the legislature. Both can be challenged and overturned if they violate constitutional rights.

The focus of Berg’s anti-​initiative worry is Measure 1, an ethics amendment passed last November and derided by Berg as “a bunch of Hollywood money to change North Dakota.” 

True, Measure 1 did receive support from folks outside North Dakota, including groups supported by Hollywood stars. 

Those financial backers were well known to North Dakotans, 54 percent of whom voted for the measure. 

And freedom means the right to associate with fellow Americans across state lines. 

Responding to Berg, Dustin Gawrylow, managing director of the North Dakota Watchdog Network, said the citizen initiative process was “the best way to keep legislators honest and in tune with the people.”

After all, without “a way for the people to actually set the rules for lawmakers,” the people would be ruled by … the capitol mob.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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The Seinfeld Referendum

nothing, Washington, pay raise, Tim Eyman,

There is an unmistakable connection between Washington State initiative guru Tim Eyman and New York City comedian Jerry Seinfeld.

Mr. Seinfeld gave viewers what they wanted for nine seasons as the star of the self-​named 1990s hit television sitcom, Seinfeld. It was slyly defined as “a show about nothing.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Eyman has been giving voters what they want (psst: more choices) for even longer — initiating ten successful ballot measures in the last two decades. And, believe-​it-​or-​not, Eyman’s latest ballot measure is also “about nothing.”

The Washington State Citizens’ Commission on Salaries for Elected Officials “is recommending raises over the next two years totaling 17.6 percent for legislators, 17.8 percent for judges, 6.6 percent for Gov. Jay Inslee, 13 percent for Lt. Gov. Cyrus Habib as well as increases for others,” the Statesman-​Examiner (Colville, Washington) reports.

This is one of those faux citizens’ commissions. “It’s totally rigged,” Eyman tells supporters, adding that “one of [the commissioners] is actually the husband of a state supreme court justice!”

Eyman reminds his fellow citizens of the Evergreen State that, regardless of the size of any proposed pay hike, they possess “the absolute right” to a referendum vote on the matter.

“Politicians say they are just scraping by. I think they can make it,” mocks Eyman to reporters. “[Governor] Jay Inslee will have to scrape by with $354,000 over the next two years.”

Along with Spokane resident Jack Fagan and Spokane City Councilman Mike Fagan, Eyman prefiled a referendum to reverse these pay raises. It’s called the “Give Them Nothing!” Referendum.

Has a nice ring to it, no?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Corruption, Arkansas-​Style

Arkansas, term limits, corruption, rules, regulations, initiative, democracy

On Friday, the Arkansas Supreme Court struck Issue 3, a citizen-​initiated measure to restore legislative term limits, from Arkansas’ November ballot. The Court declared, 4 – 3, that there weren’t enough “valid” signatures.

This, despite opponents never disputing that more than enough Arkansas voters had signed the petition.

In recent years, legislators have enacted a slew of convoluted laws, purposely designed to wreck the initiative and referendum process.* The regulations give insiders and partisans a myriad of hyper-​technical “gotchas” that can be used to disqualify whole sheets of bonafide voter signatures.

“The legislature,” explained former Governor Mike Huckabee recently, “sucker-​punched the people of Arkansas and expanded their terms. They did it, I think, very dishonestly — by calling it an ethics bill … that had nothing to do with ethics. It was all about giving themselves longer terms.”

Since getting away with that 2014 ballot con job, giving themselves a whopping 16 years in office, seven Arkansas state legislators have been indicted or convicted of corruption. The author of that tricky ballot measure, former Sen. Jon Woods, just began serving an 18-​year federal prison sentence for corruption.

Other corruption, that is.

“It’s one reason I think term limits are a very important part of our political system today,” said Huckabee. It is, he argued, “easier to get involved in things that are corrupt the longer you stay.”

Now, sadly, after 2014’s fraudulent ballot measure and two 4 – 3 state supreme court decisions neutering the entire ballot initiative process, political corruption can continue unabated in the Natural State. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* The state supreme court has ignored the clear language in the state constitution regarding such petitions: “No legislation shall be enacted to restrict, hamper or impair the exercise of the rights herein reserved to the people.”

N.B. For relevant links, check yesterday’s splash page for this weekend’s Townhall column.

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ballot access general freedom initiative, referendum, and recall media and media people Regulating Protest

Three Bad Propositions

initiative, petition, power, money, elections

Two propositions on this November’s California ballot, Propositions 8 and 11, have found an opponent.

“Both would have voters decide very narrow union-​management conflicts in two relatively small medical service sectors,” explains Dan Walters, long the dean of California columnists. Unions are sponsoring Prop 8, which “purports to limit profits in clinics that provide dialysis treatments to sufferers of kidney failure.” Ambulance companies are behind Prop 11, which would “require ambulance crews to remain on call during meal and rest breaks.”

Walters thinks it “foolish to expect November’s nine-​plus million voters to make even semi-​informed decisions about their provisions, much less understand how dialysis clinics and ambulance services operate, or should operate.”

Well, yes, but this criticism applies to government universally. Legislators don’t understand how every business or industry functions, or should function, either. Even when politicians pretend to comprehend, by what right do they micromanage other people’s businesses and labor contracts?

Freedom, not government regulation, should be the default position.

But Walters’ fix runs against this logic. He thinks that upping the required percentage of signatures for ballot placement “by half … might discourage the misuse of the system for issues that cannot be fairly and rationally decided by voters.”

Don’t bet on it.

As Walters himself admits, making it tougher and more expensive to petition a measure onto the ballot won’t block the well-​heeled: “any interest group with a few million bucks and an axe to grind can qualify a ballot measure, regardless of their merits.”

But it would disenfranchise grassroots groups.

Defeat bad measures; don’t destroy the democratic process.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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